Artist's rendering of the sensors to be installed in Chicago. / Douglas Pancoast and Satya Mark Basu, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

by Jolie Lee, USA TODAY Network

by Jolie Lee, USA TODAY Network

By year's end, Chicago could have as many as 50 sensors attached to downtown light poles collecting data on everything from the humidity to air quality to the noise level.

The project, called "Array of Things," has the potential for far-reaching applications. For example, air quality data could help you navigate a route through the city that avoids pollution and allergens. Or traffic data could inform the city where best to install bike lines.

"The whole project is, how can you get the city to be more helpful to people by telling us about itself?" said Charlie Catlett, director of the Center for Computation and Data at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, in an interview with USA TODAY Network.

Catlett's center is taking the lead on the project in partnership with Chicago. The sensors are located in a box and will be covered with a decorative aluminum shield. A prototype will be completed in the next couple of weeks, Catlett said.

The first of the sensors will appear along Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago.

The data - which also includes wind, heat, light intensity and precipitation - will be made public on Chicago's open data website, as well as a separate online database, allowing individuals to build their own applications, Catlett said.

One of the things the sensors will collect is the number of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices within about a 100-foot range to try to get at the number of pedestrians. The project has raised concerns the sensors will collect private information.

Catlett says that the information collected by the sensors will not be connected to a specific device or IP address.

Currently, Catlett's team is seeking additional funding from the National Science Foundation, which would allow them to install "hundreds of nodes" throughout the city, he said.

"Urban sensing" has been a top priority for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as he's outlined in the city's technology plan.

Other cities have used big data for specific purposes. Chicago's project appears unique because it is collecting so much different data, said Daniel Castro, director of the Center for Data Innovation, a not-for-profit think tank that studies big data and public policy.

"In other cities, you have people collecting data on weather, but they're not also collecting the noise level," he said.

Chicago has used sensors before in a limited way. For example, some bridges have sensors that collect data about temperatures and road conditions, said Brenna Berman, the city's chief information officer.

"We want to know as much about our city as we can because we know we can use that information to deliver services more efficiently and effectively," Berman said.

Boxes on light poles might only be the beginning for how the data is collected.

"There's no reason in the future that applications like this couldn't just be citizens signing up their phones to be a sensor," Castro said.

But one technologist warns of bias in the data.

"If you're trying to draw some scientific or statistically sound conclusion, you may not be able to without going back and carefully analyzing, Was the data fair in terms of the biases?" said Jeremy Gillula, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Gillula points to the Street Bump app released by Boston. Residents volunteered to use the app to track where potholes were in the city. But the people who participate must have a smartphone and people with smartphones tend to be wealthier, so the potholes reported by the app were often in wealthy areas, he said.

This same kind of bias might show up in Chicago. For example, counting the number of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices will only include some of the foot traffic.